We Recommend

My Discussions

Did gamers miss the sexual revolution?

Watch out, because two dangerous concepts are coming up: scientific study and video games. Whenever these two meet, bad things tend to happen. Edward Castronova, an economist at California State University at Fullerton, has examined the prices typically paid for EverQuest characters on eBay, and he has noticed that male characters seem to sell 12% higher on average than female ones. Yowzers, batman! But what could be causing this? The researcher noted that there could be any number of causes, but the New Scientist then fails to spell out any of Castronova's views. Instead, we learn that some bloke at Manchester University deduced that the differences could stem from ways in which female characters are treated in the game. According to CNet, Castronova is also banking on perception:

But in playing the game, he found plenty of anecdotal evidence that female characters are valued less highly than are male ones, even though the real person behind the character can be of either gender. Castronova said he played the game as a female character a number of times, and would inevitably find other players assuming he was less knowledgeable or skilled. "I'm pretty experienced, but I'd still get people coming up to me and saying, 'OK, honey, stand over there and watch what I do,'" he said. "Even though everybody knows the person behind the avatar could be either sex, the male avatars tend to be treated as more skilled...We've just taken sex roles from Earth and put them into Norrath."

I've never touched EverCrack, but perhaps some of you have your own "anecdotal" data *cough* to add here?

Ken Fisher / Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation.